Experience at Winter Guard International competition bittersweet

Published 7:00 pm, Wednesday, April 13, 2005

I've come to find that the less common that activity is, the more special it makes being able to come together.

By ANITA MEVAWALA

Coming together as a group and uniting with other groups that share the same knowledge and passions as your own can be an amazing thing, regardless of the activity.

I've come to find that the less common that activity is, the more special it makes being able to come together. I've written in the past about competing at nationals for color guard with the band, and while that's also quite an experience, it's not the same as winter guard nationals, where it's solely about the guard.

At the airport on our way to Dayton, Ohio, to compete in national competition, a lady pulled me aside and asked what the large group was for. Sometimes, getting questions like this is the hardest part of our activity. When I reply, "We are competing in a guard competition," and I get a blank look in return, having to define what exactly we are can be a bit tricky. I've found that there's pretty much two choices: you can take the easy way out and smile and say it's a type of "dance team" or you can attempt to explain what all winter guard really consists of.

It's funny sometimes to see how unknown winter guard is to the world. Simply put, it's a performing art that includes dance, expression, manipulation of equipment (flags, rifles, sabers), and even some acting.

All it took was one airplane ride to get out of the dark. When we arrived in Dayton, there were banners in the streets saying "Winter Guard International," and as we traveled places as a group, we would get asked if we were here for winter guard instead of encountering those blank stares. All the nearby local hotels would have groups of winter guards standing outside warming up. It's a remarkable feeling to come together with so many other guards from the country and have this common knowledge of our performing art.

We had mentally been preparing ourselves for weeks for our performance - especially since it was scheduled for 8:10 a.m., which served as somewhat of a handicap for us. Performing so early in the morning, the judges have nothing to compare us to, and so they have a natural predisposition to judge us more intensely. Nevertheless, we had one of our best runs ever, and after the performance was over, we all agreed that we were satisfied with how we had done. Making finals was a toss-up, and unfortunately, while we were great at what we did, and along with other extraneous factors, it wasn't what the judges were looking for.

We joked about how going back to Texas and announcing our results to the school would only result in a misunderstanding of our class divisions and a general assumption that we can't live up to our name from last year. After getting first place last year in San Diego in the scholastic open class, people would naturally assume we should do the same thing this year. However, this year we moved up to the scholastic world class, the highest class possible to compete in winter guard, which in itself is a great honor. The fact that we got to compete in world class at nationals and perform at such a high level is a huge step for our guard, and I think we managed to pull off what we did without any troubles.

While we were initially disappointed that we didn't make finals, I think we all realized it was pretty much out of our control. We had an awesome performance, and that is pretty much all we can ask for. We came to the conclusion that we did our show well and performed where we needed to perform.

I am really happy to end my high school guard career on this note. We went in a completely different direction than usual, unparalleled from the past years. There are so many performance styles to experiment with in winter guard, and it is hard to understand this even from a performer's perspective until you actually get to nationals and see your competition with all the best world winter guards in the nation.

One important factor in growing as a guard is experimenting with those different performance levels and seeing what direction it takes you in, which is exactly what our director did.

I feel very fortunate to have been a part of winter guard throughout high school. I think that being part of such a group can teach you and allow you to grow as an individual, get you to stay involved, learn dedication, commitment, team work, and so much more. Winter guard is just one example of what you can explore in life and within yourself as you commit to a team effort.